Cycling A New Tank

[Bluejay]

Hi

I'm cycling a new Rekord 70 and at the moment I was thinking I would add ammonia and wait for it to go down until some nitrites build up once this has happened I was planning on adding some mature filter media from another tank. I thought this would be the best method to use for cycling the tank, does anyone know if I'll hit any problems doing this? Or if I'd be better doing it a different way?

Thanks for any ideas

 

[orange shark]

Hi

I'm cycling a new Rekord 70 and at the moment I was thinking I would add ammonia and wait for it to go down until some nitrites build up once this has happened I was planning on adding some mature filter media from another tank. I thought this would be the best method to use for cycling the tank, does anyone know if I'll hit any problems doing this? Or if I'd be better doing it a different way?

Thanks for any ideas

If you've already got mature filter media put it in at the start of the cycling! (well thats what i do)

 

[Bluejay]

I thought that if I wait until there is some nitrite in the tank it would mean that the bacteria that eats it won't be killed when I add the mature filter, this is the reason I was planning on waiting and seeing until some of the ammonia has been consumed.

 

[doresy]

Bang it straight in my friend!

As soon as you add ammonia the bacteria in the matured media will immediately start to process it producing nitrite for that bacteria to feed from.

 

[scorphonic]

Reason why its best to put it all in at the very start is that the ammonia consuming bacteria that make the nitrites will do so fast enough to keep your nitrite consuming bacteria alive.

They dont die that quickly, so dont worry...once they go in and there is an ammonia source then they will mostly all survive and anyways bacteria grow pretty quickly.

As an example when I grow E-coli in my lab I start off by growing them in 10ml of a liquid food source. To get them to a very high density takes 24 hours. The next day I transfer this 10ml to 490ml of a liquid food source and within only 4 hours the bacteria have multiplied to a high density. Its that quick. So after 4 hours I have enough cells to work with...so use this in terms of the aquarium and filter...if you seed the filters now with mature medium you will have a filter that is ready to support a high bioload within about a week or two. You must remember that the difference between growing bacteria in an aquarium and in the lab is that the temperature in the lab can be kept at a high level to promote growth and the solutions that we use to feed the bacteria is a bit more concentrated so they grow quicker.

Seed those filters now...no need to wait.

 

[Bluejay]

Cool Ok I'll stick the filter in now then.

Thanks very much for the explanation